Learning by doing

STOCKTON - Adrian Vega is on trial, charged with a hit-and-run on a triathlete that occurred because she was texting while driving.

Roger Phillips

STOCKTON - Adrian Vega is on trial, charged with a hit-and-run on a triathlete that occurred because she was texting while driving.

"The defendant took off straight home like a coward without checking to see if what she hit was a cat, a dog or a bicyclist," the prosecutor says.

But the defense attorney says her client wasn't driving the offending vehicle.

"She was (in the car)," the attorney argues, "but as the passenger. Your honor, I am only stating what the evidence shows."

This scene played out not in a courtroom but in a class at Pacific Law Academy, a small Stockton Unified high school on the Stagg High campus.

"Not only do we learn," said 17-year-old Lisa Cruz, who portrayed the fictitious defendant, "but it's hands-on learning, and it's interactive."

More and more, K-12 school districts in San Joaquin County are providing students with real-life learning opportunities, from classroom simulations such as the mock trial to actual internships in medical facilities.

"I think we need to continue to provide different pathways for students that will meet their needs, whether that is meeting (college entrance) requirements, preparing students for career/technical colleges or providing industry certification to join the job force upon graduation," Lincoln Unified Superintendent Tom Uslan said. "This combination of providing pathways for our students is essential."

Lincoln High's highest-profile program of this sort is its architecture and construction academy. Stockton Unified offers a wide range of career pathway programs at its four large high schools and its smaller secondary-school campuses. The same can be said for the other school districts in the county, as well as the various public charter schools and private schools.

Programs such as these are seen by business officials and educational leaders alike as integral to the development of a skilled labor pool that will attract more high-paying jobs to San Joaquin County.

"It brings in business if you have an educated workforce," Stockton Unified Superintendent Steve Lowder said. "Hopefully it keeps kids on the straight and narrow. What a school can do for a community can be an amazing thing. I think it's critical to improving Stockton."

Charter schools - some operated by independent organizations, some by traditional school districts - are playing an important role in developing future workers. Freed from some of the regulations that restrict traditional public schools, the charters have the flexibility to serve as laboratories in the effort to find what works.

With its "College for Certain" pledge, Aspire Public Schools has been lauded for its success with a student population demographically similar to those served by traditional districts.

Downtown Stockton in recent years has become home to two other independently operated charter schools: the K-12 Stockton Collegiate International and the K-4 TEAM Charter School, which specifically targets low-income and minority students. Stockton Early College Academy, with its rigorous approach, as well as Pacific Law Academy and Health Careers Academy are examples of Stockton Unified charters targeting the goals and interests of a wide range of students.

"Charters can show us some of what's possible," said Lynn Beck, dean of the Benerd School of Education at University of the Pacific. "I don't think they're the answer, but they're part of the answer."

Education, in whatever form it's delivered, must be viewed only as part of the solution for what ails the county, Beck said. In San Joaquin County, United States Census figures show that nearly one of every five residents lives in poverty. Beck said poverty and all that accompanies it - inadequate resources for health and dental care, lack of physical safety, improper nutrition - are among the major impediments for schools trying to educate their students.

"Poverty is a huge predictor of poor academic outcomes, often because poverty trumps things schools can do," Beck said. "It's a very big issue we need to deal with."

Providing education to children of poverty during their formative years is especially critical, Beck said, and will pay great long-term dividends if society is willing to pay for such programs over the long haul.

"We'll all win if we invest early, but we're not going to see results for generations, and it will probably take two generations before we experience societal lifts," she said.

For the students who have made it to the mock-trial class at Pacific Law Academy, the future beckons.

In a few years, some of them intend to be attorneys, careers that will have had their start because of the innovative educational opportunities afforded them during high school.

"My kids are engaged, and there's no effort on my part to get them there," mock trial teacher Ryan Pinkham said. "Teaching a hands-on program is easier for me as a teacher, and I feel the students get more out of it."